What haven’t I done before?

My friend was kind enough to give me an Indian cooking lesson where he taught me to make a variety of different curries. In this post I am going to tell you how to make a spicy spinach curry which is the green curry in the picture. It’s so delicious and we enjoyed it with rice and poppadums.

Ingredients (serves 4):

Green chilli paste

Handful of medium sized green chillies (you can get these from most Indian supermarkets or Sainsbury’s even sell a large bag), stalks cut off
4cm x Piece of ginger, peeled and roughly diced
5 x Garlic cloves, peeled
1 x Tsp ground tumeric
1 x Tsp salt
Vegetable oil

Curry
2 x Large dried red chillies
1 x Red onion, diced
0.5 x Bag of frozen spinach
5 x Fenugreek seeds
250g x Passata
1 x Tbsp fresh coriander
6 x Curry leaves

Masala mix (spice mix)

0.5 x Tbsp green chilli paste (from above)
1 x Tbsp ground tumeric
1 x Tsp salt
1 x Tbsp ground corriander
1 x Tbsp ground cumin
1 x Tsp red chilli powder

Method:

• To make the green chilli paste (which will provide you with enough for a number of curries) you need to put all the ingredients into a blender with a tablespoon of oil. Blend really well until the seeds have split. You won’t manage to do this to all of them but when you are happy with the consistency stop blending.

• Put 2 tablespoons of oil in a non-stick pan and get it really hot. Add in the dried red chillies and carefully toss the oil over them until they start to swell (don’t burn them).
• Add in the diced onion, give it a stir and cover. Don’t keep opening up to stir (which we all have a habit of doing) but let the onions cook until light brown.
• Then add in the frozen spinach and leave on a high heat covered (gas cookers are much easier to use for this kind of curry as you can really control the temperature. I have an electric cooker and it does work but you need to be really careful). Cook for around 10 minutes and check a couple of times but don’t keep opening the pan and stirring as your dish will loose some of the aromas.
• Whilst the curry is cooking, put the 5 fenugreek seeds in a small cup or glass and cover with boiling water – this will help release the flavours.
• In a small bowl put together the masala mix and then stir into the spinach. At this point it is advised to take out 1 of the dried chillies as it may be too hot for you or your guests. You can add the fenugreek and infused water.
• Cook the spinach and masala mix in it’s juices on a low heat for 15 minutes – remember not to stir too much but do check to make sure the mixture isn’t sticking to the bottom of the pan.
• Add in the passata and curry leaves – gently stir. You can now leave the curry on a low heat to cook for another 15 minutes.
• Serve with rice and poppadums.